


Flashover

by amb-roses (buckshot_lariat)



Series: One Hundred Ways to Say 'I Love You' [3]
Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: 100 Ways to Say I Love You Writing Challenge, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Non-Sexual Intimacy, ask to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 04:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17073260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckshot_lariat/pseuds/amb-roses
Summary: 2. "It reminded me of you."Daniel's work takes him out of the country for two weeks. Miz, without him there, spirals.





	Flashover

**Author's Note:**

> flashover [from the dictionary of obscure sorrows]  
> "n. the moment a conversation becomes real and alive, which occurs when a spark of trust shorts out the delicate circuits you keep insulated under layers of irony, momentarily grounding the static emotional charge you’ve built up through decades of friction with the world."
> 
> cross posted from the main fic (first work in the series)

It starts with Daniel, as every annoyance in Miz's life does nowadays.

Miz very, very,  _ very hesitantly, and not at all aloud,  _ misses the tiny vegan. Coffee in the morning was slow, he bumped blindly into walls and stubbed his toes on corners, made stupid early-morning-mistakes without anyone to laugh and make light of it with their dumb, deep chested laugh. 

His mornings sucked without him, was the headline. The rest of the day sucked too, but the mornings were where Miz really felt his absence. There was no ball of walking sunshine to squint and mildly bask in, no life to liven his walls, no _Mike_ 's to half-heartedly correct to _Miz._

Miz could only compare it to something he previously felt before in his life, coming close to homesickness, and he  _ loathed  _ it.

Which is why when he hears the unmistakably  _ living _ shriek in a dumpster on his way to work, he hates that he pauses and hesitantly backtracks to peer into the dirty alley. He despises the smell, the guilt that nags when he nearly dips out a single step into the filth, the way he peers over the lip of the metal carefully. He detests the way his bare hands reach in and open a tilted shoebox to a small scruff of fur, a kitten not more than a few weeks old.

Miz loathes the way he calls in and pulls rank at his work to take the tiny kitten to a walk-in veterinary clinic. When they let him see it,  _ her,  _ he corrects himself, he's surprised. She's fluffy, a brownish-ginger tabby with startling blue eyes when she squints up at him. She seems to recognize him and stumbles toward him on tottering legs while the doctor rambles on.

She reminds him…

“–be going into shelter care.”

His head whips around, neck creaking in protest. “Shelter care?”

“Well, yes. We chipped her, she's just old enough for one, but since she's not been chipped it's safe to assume she doesn't belong to anyone.”

“I'll take her,” is out of his mouth before he can properly tell himself,  _ no, he really shouldn’t _ .

He manages to stave off the panic of  _ holy shit I own a kitten now, I should be at work and I own a kitten, and I've never owned a cat before oh shit–  _ until he gets home, paperwork crumpled in the crook of his elbow. His thumb brushes over Daniel's number for a half second before settling with Maryse. She always knows what to do. He doesn't need to bother Daniel, he's busy enough on his trip as it is without his dumb ass putting more on his plate.

“What do you want, I'm busy.”

“I adopted a kitten and I have no idea what to do.”

“... Have you called  _ ton autre moitié?” _

“What the hell does that mean?” He asks in the tone of voice that reads  _ I did not take any form of french in highschool or college.  _ “Speak english, I’m irritable and holding a ball of fur. Maryse. Maryse, it’s  _ meowing at me, Maryse–” _

“Have you called Bryan, you idiot? Or anyone else other than me?”

“His name is  _ Daniel,”  _ he answers hotly, ignoring her triumphant  _ oh, really?  _ “and he's busy on a trip out of the country. I don't want to bother him when he's so busy. He’ll be sleeping about now, I don’t want to bother him being. Clingy or whatever.”

“That’s considerate of you, _Miz._ I didn’t realize you knew his sleep schedule.” She teases to his wordless annoyance. “I don't know anything about cats, unfortunately. I _do_ know that _Daniel_ knows a lot about them though, so try him. Text me when you've named my niece or nephew.”

“Wait–” But she's already hung up.  _ Asshole. _

The furball has pulled from his hand, settling to climb his shirt as he settles more firmly into Daniel’s couch, and by the time he pulls himself together enough to actually hit  _ call _ he's laying on his back with the kitten napping on his chest,  _ muuurp _ ing in her sleep.

It's not that cute, he thinks, the way tiny predator sounds like Daniel when he forgets to put a nasal strip on before bed. It’s really not.

“H'llo?”

“Daniel. I… need help.”

“Oh?” He sounds more awake now. “You do, do you?”

“Yes. I have this… menace. A small cat. I accidentally adopted it before realizing I don't really know how to take care of one.”

Miz manages two heavy sighs before Daniel stops cackling into the phone.

“A menace, huh? How'd you  _ accidentally _ adopt an animal?  No, first, why're you keep it in the first place? I thought you hated cats.”

Embarrassment burns hot on his tongue. “I don't! They're filthy animals, the pits of society! I can't stand them, the absolute demons! The stupid kitten was out in the cold and my damn conscious, the  _ stupid thing _ you _ gave me, _ made me take it and get it cleaned up at the vet!”

“Why the hell would keep if it you hate them so much? Jeez.”

Embarrassment sizzles out into heavy guilt and chilly anxiety.  _ Don’t say something dumb,  _ that softer part of him urges,  _ genuine. Be real with him, be honest. Tell him the truth. Open up. _

“I,” he stops and starts, pauses as Daniel waits patiently. “I don't hate them. I… got bit by a stray once, as a kid. Put me off to them. I can't read them very well, like dogs. They're stoic. But it, uh…”

“Yeah?” The phone prompts, quieter, encouraging.

**“It reminded me of you,** okay?” His mouth is moving faster than he can catch it once again, his nerves bubbling under his skin like a vibrating reminder of  _ what a dumbass you are, shut up, shut  _ up. “Is that good enough to get you off my back? It looked like you before I improved your quality of life, all pathetic with sad eyes and dirty hair and scraggly beard! I don't know how to take care of a cat, never mind a child-cat, Daniel!”

Daniel sounds remarkably fond, if exasperated. “It's a kitten, Mike, not a baby. Listen, get some paper, I'll help you make a list, okay?”

“Yeah! Yes, it's fine! I'm totally fine! And it’s  _ Miz,  _ to you!”

“Hey, take few breaths, alright?”

“I'm breathing!” He puffs out his chest to an empty room, the kitten shifting as his tone spikes. “I'm fine!”

“I know, you're always fine, but do it anyway? For me?”

That prick, tricking him into his weird yoga tricks, counting breaths or whatever. What a waste of time.

He won't admit the counting helped keep him a little more focused and level headed as he properly bought and rearranged his home for his new housemate. A few times he feels ready to have a damn heart attack, keeping the hellion from falling off too-big counters or getting stuck by the claws in something important. 

He settles on Hellspawn before eventually going with Lucretia after she latches firmly onto an ball of yarn that he'd fished from his grandmother's old sewing box. Lucretia sounded like an old lady name, and if the kitten’s attention continued to stray to his grandma's yarn over the plethora of toys he bought, then the kitten had to pay the price of betrayal.

Really, as much as he postured to others and sometimes himself, Lucretia almost soothed the ache of a missing Bryan, the days passing faster with her there to occupy his worries and attention. A warm body to his right, a companion in the mornings and evenings, not quite Bryan shaped, but one nonetheless.

Daniel returns home three days later and is immediately enraptured by the beast, her thorn claws putting holes in one of Miz’s nicer dress shirt as the smaller man attempts to remove her from her new perch: his shoulders.

It's alright, he wouldn't admit aloud as Daniel steps close to carefully untangle the cat from his neck, because the joy and crinkle of his eyes made all the stress worth it. “Good job, Mike,” Daniel hums into his shoulder when the kitten is safely on the floor, and nothing is more painfully  _ right _ than the man in his arms, beard brushing soothingly against his neck where his button up is pushed down under his stubborn chin.

Above all, Miz hates the way his voice quiets to something raw and soft, because he definitely doesn’t need Daniel’s approval of anything, didn't miss him,  _ shut up. _

“Thanks, Daniel.” 

_ Welcome back, welcome home. _


End file.
